Intense confrontation broke out over the East China Sea, with the J-16 performing a corkscrew maneuver to lock onto two F-22s, giving U.S. pilots a lesson!
Recently, CCTV once again revisited a piece of air combat footage that caused a stir in military circles — on a certain day in 2024, in the airspace of the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone, a J-16 and two F-22s engaged in a close-range aerial confrontation. Colonel Li Chao recounted the entire process calmly in the program.
On the day of the confrontation, Li Chao and his comrades were carrying out training tasks along the coast. The ground early warning system had previously detected the movements of two foreign stealth aircraft, and the J-16 formation immediately took off to intercept. There is a key detail that is easy to overlook — as a fifth-generation fighter, the F-22 should rely on its stealth advantage to conduct reconnaissance or deterrence beyond visual range, but this time, the enemy chose to approach aggressively, attempting to find an opening through close-range dogfights.
During the first encounter, Li Chao's J-16 locked onto one of the F-22s' wingmen. The lead aircraft sensed the unfavorable situation and tried to break away from the air combat zone for countermeasures. At this critical moment, Li Chao made an unexpected move: he pulled back the control stick, causing the J-16 to climb vertically and perform a corkscrew maneuver, flying upside down and hovering directly above the enemy aircraft. After completing the maneuver, the fire control radar simultaneously locked both F-22s, causing the enemy formation to become disorganized and quickly withdraw.
The program's narration mentioned a thought-provoking statement: "This type of aircraft has never appeared near Chinese waters again."
The J-16 is equipped with a gallium nitride active phased array radar, which has a significant advantage in detecting stealth targets. Traditional stealth coatings are optimized for specific frequency bands, while the gallium nitride radar operates over a wider frequency band, allowing it to detect the signal characteristics of the F-22 at a greater distance. Analysts point out that the J-16 had already grasped the enemy's movements at a distance of 400 kilometers, meaning the F-22's stealth advantage was greatly weakened in the complex electromagnetic environment near the coast.
This interception was not a single aircraft operation, but rather supported by an entire information network from satellites, early warning aircraft to ground radars. Before taking off, the J-16 had already mastered key parameters such as the enemy aircraft's track, altitude, and speed, equivalent to taking an open-book exam. In contrast, although the F-22 formation had excellent stealth performance, it lacked the same level of systemic support when operating far from its home base in the East China Sea, and its information disadvantage was magnified in the close-range confrontation.
The F-22, as the first fifth-generation fighter of the U.S. military, has been a symbol of "air superiority" since its 2005 deployment. There have been records of F-22 deployments in U.S. military bases in the Asia-Pacific region such as Kadena and Guam, but they have mostly been used for deterrence patrols and rarely entered into close-range confrontations. This incident has attracted attention precisely because the F-22 was first suppressed by a fourth-and-a-half-generation fighter using tactical maneuvers in near-sea airspace, and then chose to withdraw rather than escalate the confrontation.
Dao Ge believes that the outcome of this confrontation reflects the culmination of years of system construction by the Chinese Air Force. Progress in every aspect, from equipment development to personnel training, from early warning networks to command systems, has led to the initiative in this confrontation. For the U.S. military, the cost of this lesson is the collapse of the myth of the F-22's invincibility; for the Chinese Air Force, it is another milestone in the transition from "territorial air defense" to "offensive and defensive capabilities." In the future, similar aerial encounters may still occur, but the rules have changed — whoever possesses the system advantage will control the airspace.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1857791868083208/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.